My first portrait

[Petrified Elf]

I recently made a portrait of a guard that I HAVE NO INTENTION OF GOING MAINLINE! It is very cartoon-ish and is totally for practice. Could criticism start out slowly and help build up a basic wesnothonian style? So no mean stuff. Thanks!

[Sgt. Groovy]

The biggest problem right now is that you're not drawing the face as a three dimensional object, but as a symbolic representation of a "face," as a concept. The eyes, nose etc. are represented as symbols that are not understood as such because they resemble the actual things, but because of cultural conventions.

What you need to do is practice first with very simple objects, like boxes, mugs, reels of tape, etc., and draw them not as your mind sees them, but as a camera would. A box would then not be a rectangle but consist of three parallelograms.

You have lot of ground to cover, but nil desperandum, everyone must start from somewhere.

[bert1]

What I like about the portrait is that the guard has an expression! I'm not sure what of, but it's there. Some computer-game artwork is very accomplished but is boring and cliched. I'd rather have a rough picture of an interesting character than a perfect picture of a bland character. Compare the portraits of Baldur's Gate 1 (full of character) with the portraits of 2, which are dull IMO.

[Turuk]

What I like about the portrait is that the guard has an expression! I'm not sure what of, but it's there.

I believe that's called happiness.

Petrified Elf, you could also sit outside or at a coffee shop and sketch people. People walking past, people sitting down, people talking, any of those will help you to get an idea of the human body. On top of that there are numerous beginner level books that give even simple exercises that will help you give your portrait a sense of depth. Practice practice practice will help you get better.

[Sgt. Groovy]

What I like about the portrait is that the guard has an expression!

That's true, and there is no reason why a user-made campaign couldn't have its portraits in cartoony style (as long as they are all in the same style).

[Petrified Elf]

Thanks for the support and advice! My parents are artists and they have a collection of anatomy and portrait related books so I'll make use of them. I am obviously younger than kitty and have no use of photoshop(my pictures will be of much less quality because I use Seashore) so I've got years to practice.

George has a look that to me implies a odd, quizzical happiness...

I redrew lines on his face to direct me to a more 3d look.

[Turuk]

my pictures will be of much less quality because I use Seashore

If you are already using Seashore, why not use GIMP? It will give you the capacity beyond basic image editing. While you may not need the vast array of tools it offers just yet, I think that getting familiar with a program such as GIMP now will serve you well in the long run.

[thespaceinvader]

I suggest getting hold of a basic book of head anatomy - making this guy more 3d isn't really going to help you much - what you need to do is learn to construct a human head right from the basics. If your parents are artists, I bet they've got books like this. Ask them about writers such are Burne Hogarth and Andrew Loomis, both of whom have done excellent texts on drawing the human head.

It'll take you a lot of practice to get good, but if you're willing to ut in the hard work, you will get there =)

And I second Turuk's suggestion about GIMP (http://www.gimp.org).

[Petrified Elf]

my pictures will be of much less quality because I use Seashore

If you are already using Seashore, why not use GIMP? It will give you the capacity beyond basic image editing. While you may not need the vast array of tools it offers just yet, I think that getting familiar with a program such as GIMP now will serve you well in the long run.

I use a Mac OSX 3.9 macbook, which sadly doesn't support GIMP.

@invader, I will look at similar books for this month since thats all I have to work with.

[Skizzaltix]

I got a Mac OSX 3.3 iBook to run gimp--Have you tried looking here?